Let’s kick off this week’s Las Vegas Raiders mailbag with a big happy birthday to the United States of America and Al Davis! I hope everyone has a great day celebrating with their friends and family, but first, we have to answer some questions about the Raiders’ roster!
Nunchucks
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Hey Matt!…Which WR do you think is going to really shine for the Raiders this season?…Tucker, Nailor, Bech, Malik Benson, Donte Thornton, Shedrick Jackson?…And if Kubiak feels we need a proven Vet WR, Who do you think fits best in his Offense and who would we be likely to get?…Deebo Samuel, Keenan Allen, Stefon Diggs,?
A: I’m very intrigued by what Tre Tucker is going to do this season. I know I’ve mentioned this a bunch of times, but I’m going to keep beating the drum by saying that he’s done an excellent job of getting better every year, and doing that while working with so many quarterbacks makes the former third-round pick’s growth even more impressive. Also, I think Klint Kubiak is really going to like Tucker because Kubiak mentioned him as a player he’s excited to work with, and the receiver fits the coach’s profile for the position: fast and versatile.
On the proven vet side of things, I touched on that in a little more detail last week (see related below), but I’ll give y’all the cliff notes here.
Deebo Samuel is the easy answer from a scheme fit perspective since he’s played in this offense for the majority of his career, including in 2023 when Kubiak was the 49ers’ passing game coordinator. But Samuel isn’t the No. 1 receiver type and appears to have lost a step. To me, the best Raiders’ option at this stage would be Stefon Diggs, since Diggs can be the versatile wideout Kubiak likes and has experience being a top target. But the question is, will the 32-year-old be willing to play for a team that’s rebuilding?
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Q: It seems like almost every post I read discussing the LB group states what an upgrade the offseason additions of Quay Walker and Nakobe Dean are. But when I look at the PFF ratings of Walker, it gives me concern. Sometimes PFF may not fully give the complete picture, but 3 years with significantly below-average rankings have me concerned. Hoping you have something that I have missed or not considered. Thoughts?
A: For some context, the baseline grade for PFF is 60, meaning if a player just does his job every single play and never does anything special or doesn’t have a negative rep, they’ll get a 60 for the game/season. Obviously, that never happens unless someone barely plays, which is why you’ll rarely see a flat 60.0 grade. Walker was below 60 in each of his four seasons with the Packers, with marks of 52.0, 58.7, 57.2 and 46.0, respectively.
Why a lot of people, myself included, feel the linebacker room was upgraded is that last year’s was so bad. For example, Devin White had a 40.7 grade in 2025, and that was slightly inflated by a 69.0 pass-rush grade, which isn’t a crucial aspect of the position. Elandon Roberts was a 57.2, but the Raiders also took him off the field in a lot of passing situations to hide his coverage flaws, while Walker was used as an every-down linebacker in Green Bay.
The other thing to keep in mind here—and you mentioned it in your question—is that PFF grades are a good way to help add some context, but they don’t tell the whole story. I like referencing them in my articles for the context aspect, and I used to be a grader for PFF, so I know all the work that goes in behind the scenes to help me trust their process even if I don’t 100 percent agree with the grade they put out. But you’re missing a few pieces of the puzzle if you’re only looking at the grade and not diving into the stats and the film, too.
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Also, I do think PFF’s grading system can be hard on linebackers, especially in coverage. That’s a position offenses look to pick on in the passing game, so they’re going to give up a lot of completions, and their primary goal is just to get the pass-catcher on the ground. Meanwhile, PFF gives more weight to ball production than coverage stops.
As a result, a guy like Walker, who rarely leaves the field unless he’s injured, is going to have more “negative” plays because he has more opportunities to give up completions, bringing his grade down. Circling back to Roberts, he was on the field for 268 coverage snaps and was targeted 23 times, while Walker had 507 coverage snaps and 84 targets. So the latter is going to give up more completions, which brings his overall grade down. Don’t get me wrong, he has work to do to fix that issue, but he also has the tools to get the job done.
All of this being said, Walker’s instincts aren’t where they should be at this point in his career, and that makes him still a bit of a project and a riskier free agent signing given that he signed for three years, $40.5 million. Physically, the 6-foot-4, 241-pounder who runs a 4.52-second 40 has the traits to be a very good linebacker in the league.
So, the Raiders are making a big bet on his traits and that the mental part of the game will finally click for him. The good news is that the third year on Walker’s contract is basically a team option, so the organization can move on with minimal dead cap hit if he doesn’t put it together.
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ChrisVMD
I think QB salaries are sort of breaking team building. This article lays it out pretty well:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6576049/2025/08/28/nfl-qb-contracts-mahomes-allen-prescott-burrow/
A team’s “SB Window” is now the QBs rookie contract, which… is obviously absurd.
Once the QB starts eating 20%+ of the cap, you have very limited options for team building. You probably get one good receiver, one good tackle, one good pass rusher, then you have to draft well and cobble together “some dudes” and get them to play above their level.
I’m exaggerating a bit and know that some teams have ways around the cap… but I do think it’s a real problem.
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When one player is eating that much cap, it’s hard to build a great team. Look how incredible Joe Burrow is. Can’t get there since his salary hamstrung the team.
The worst crime is when you pay this kind of money to someone above average like Prescott, Carr or Trevor Lawrence.
At the same time, GMs basically have no choice. Their options:
-Don’t offer bloated QB contract, dude walks away, enter QB purgatory, get fired
-Offer bloated QB contract, probably be over .500 most years, try to get lucky on a run of draft picks/free agents and make a run, not get fired
Should the NFL set a single player % of cap limit? I know, not gonna happen, but it would be better for all the other mid tier players, better for team building. What do you think of this and how it changes team building?
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A: I definitely think quarterback contracts have gotten out of control, where $50 million per year is the going rate for an above average starter. For context, that would acount for roughly 16.6 percent of a team’s total cap space and be the 13th-highest rate at the position, sandwiched between Jalen Hurts ($51 million) and Deshaun Watson ($46 million), per Over The Cap. Sure, we all know the Watson deal is a bad one, but Daniel Jones, who signed a new contract this offseason, is next up at $44 million.
But what I like about the current structure is it creates more team building strategies. General managers have to decide if they want to tie up a good chunk of their cap space to the most important position on the field, essentially banking on the quarterback elevating the other players around him. Or follow the Seahawks’ blueprint from last season, getting Sam Darnold on $33.5 million per year deal and using the money saved to build out the rest of the roster.
Also, I feel the same way about the NIL argument in college sports, I don’t believe in restricting anyone from making as much money as possible and do believe that markets will correct themselves.
If an owner wants to pay a quarterback $100 million a year, who am I to say that shouldn’t happen from either side’s perspective? But at the same time, most owners get to where they’re at because they’re good business people. I get the feeling that if owners start seeing their money getting wasted on expensive quarterback contracts, we’ll see a pivot to Seattle’s strategy in the future.
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I think last season is an interesting case study on this topic. The two quarterbacks in the Super Bowl—Darnold and Drake Maye—were on relatively cheap contracts, especially since Maye is still on his rookie deal. However, of the 12 QBs who enter the 2026 season making $50 million or more per year, only five didn’t at least make the playoff last season: Patrick Mahomes, Dak Prescott, Joe Burrow, Jared Goff and Lamar Jackson.
Interestingly, the first three players are the three highest-paid players in the league, and all five teams had issues with their supporting casts, especially on defense. Granted, Burrow’s inability to stay healthy is a big factor in the Bengals’ issues, and to an extent, the same goes with Jackson and the Ravens.
Long story short, quarterback contracts are making team building pretty difficult. But hey, no one said that was or should be easy. That’s why the general managers also make a lot of money, and I like that it makes the draft so important for every team regardless of where they’re picking.
AAAA54
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I recently read an article predicting Bowers to win OPOY. What are your thoughts?
A: I like Brock Bowers and think he’ll be the focal point of the Raiders’ offense this year to put up some impressive volume stats, but Offensive Player of the Year seems pretty unrealistic. Bowers will be competing with running backs and wide recievers for the award, so he’s not only going to have to put up elite numbers for a tight end, but also be a top three to five guy statisically across the league.
Also, these “individual” awards require being on a contending team. Myles Garrett was an exception to that last year, but he also had a historic season by breaking the sack record that Michael Strahan held for 20 years. So, Garrett was a different case, and the last player to win OPOY but not make the playoffs was 2008, when Drew Brees became the second player (at the time) in NFL history to throw for over 5,000 yards in a season. No one else had done that since Dan Marino in 1984.
In other words, barring Bowers flirting with an iconic record and/or the Raiders surprsing people this season, I’d put his OPOY odds pretty low.
That’ll do it for this week’s mailbag. Thank you all for submitting questions and, as your weekly reminder, if you’d like to have your questions answered in a future column, tweet them at me, @MHolder95, email them to SBPQuestions1@gmail.com or look for our weekly call for questions on the site. The latter will continue to publish on Thursdays.
